Animal Advocates Go to Court to Stop Bear Hunt
Posted Oct. 01, 2015 08:30 am | Public News Service
TALLAHASSEE, FL - Wildlife advocates are going before Florida's 2nd Judicial Circuit in Tallahassee today to ask Judge George Reynolds to halt Florida's first bear hunt in 21 years.
Speak Up Wekiva, Inc. is a small group of volunteers
who filed a lawsuit against the FWC to stop
the ill-conceived and unscientific hunt of the Florida
Black Bear.
The organization Speak Up Wekiva, named for the Wekiva River and nearby Wekiva Springs in Seminole County, says it is suing the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission because the agency is not living up to its constitutional mandate to protect wildlife.
The founder of Speak Up Wekiva, Chuck O'Neal, says the
hunt is only supposed to allow 320 bears to be killed.
But 2,200 hunting permits have been sold, and the hunt
is set to run for a minimum of 48 hours, regardless of
how many bears are killed.
"If 500 bears are killed on the first day, they can
still not call the hunt," he says. "We do not believe
this is a prudent course of action considering the black
bear was on the threatened list as recently as 2012."
The hunt comes in response to three maulings in Seminole
County and a surge of complaints about bears roaming
suburban neighborhoods. The Fish and Wildlife Commission
estimates there are 3,100 bears in the state.
O'Neal says the state caused the problem by selling
permits, up until June of this year, for residents to
harvest saw palmetto berries - which cut off the bears'
food source.
"There aren't necessarily more bears than there used to
be. It's just they have been pushed out of the forest,"
he says. "The smart thing to do is to restore their
natural food supply in the forest and bear-proof trash
cans in neighboring suburbia."
The bear hunt is scheduled to begin Oct. 24.
Photos/graphics and links added by the Observer
This piece was reprinted by the Columbia County Observer with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.